Sometimes the Same
by TertiaryRaiths
Summary: It looks like him, it walks like him, but Jack Harkness knows he's never coming back.


Jack had wanted him back, but not like this, not badly enough to want _this. _

There was a hollowness in the eyes, an emptiness staining them dark-a blankness that repelled Jack rather than attracting him.

The figure stood there awkwardly, a copy of him to the letter-perfectly straight tie, pressed shirt, three piece pinstripe-but he wore it all wrong, as if it were an alien object.

The familiar face turned this way and that, and the dark eyes fixed on him.

"Help me," the-creature-that-wasn't-Ianto-Jones pleaded.

* * *

Jack stared at it. It stared back with lifeless eyes.

He went over a thousand scenarios-the corpse snatched from cold storage and taken over by an alien parasite, a shapeshifter, or an alien-or human-with a device that allowed it to shift shapes, or some new, hideous kind of Cyberman-but none of them fit. There was no Rift activity, he'd checked on the body only hours ago.

But here Ianto Jones-or whatever this was masquerading as him-stood, in the flesh.

"Who are you?" Jack asked carefully.

"It's me," the fake Ianto answered, puzzled, "I'm still together...I _am _still together?" It felt its own face.

"No, you aren't," Jack snapped, anxiety and fury warring for control, "Ianto Jones is in cold storage."

"I'm here now, aren't I?" the Ianto creature replied contrarily, sliding its hands into its pockets. The motion looked awkward, as if someone had asked it to bend its arms backwards.

It hurt too much to look at him and see the wrongness there, in a body Jack had been familiar with in every possible way, and Jack had to fight to keep looking at it.

"What's the last thing you remember?" he challenged, then changed the question. "The last _happy _thing you remember?"

"The night before Captain John came back," the thing replied immediately, a puzzled, helpless smile-contorting the face almost grotesquely-flashing over its face, "Down in the-"

"Yeah," Jack sighed, and pulled out his Webley. "Only me and Ianto, we went back to his flat."

_Back to the flat, collecting Ianto's things-his suits and tasteful rainbow of ties, the locked diaries bulging with secrets and a few scattered photos in frames-the can of instant coffee Gwen had got him as a joke for Christmas. Collecting them all up and boxing them away just like he'd boxed Ianto away, locking them up to collect dust-_

The false Ianto looked confused, even frightened, as Jack refocused and pointed the barrel of the Webley between its stained blue eyes.

"What are you?" he demanded.

"I-"

"You haven't said my name," he pounded on relentlessly, "What's my name?"

It stared at him. "Don't you want me?" it wondered timidly.

Jack pressed his gun into its forehead. "I want _Ianto_," he snarled, "And you aren't him."

_Oh, god, what if it was Ianto, what if someone had found a way to bring him back, like Owen, he didn't care if he was like Owen just please let it be Ianto, please don't make me shoot him-_

This time when he focused the old tourist shop was empty. Jack Harkness whirled, expecting to see it-to see _Ianto_-somewhere in the room.

But it was just a dark and musty room, flyers cracking and turning yellow and posters wrinkling up from the damp.

His eye fell on a black coffee mug, and he threw another glance around the shop, the memory of the wrong Ianto sending shivers down his spine. He looked back at the coffee mug. It had been sitting there since the morning he and Ianto had gone to the hospital, months ago.

_He's gone. He's never coming back to bitch about the Hub being a filthy mess and 'why can't anyone ever file a report and is it really so hard to pick **up** after yourself, Jack, honestly-'_

Trying not to think about it, Jack reached out and swept the outdated flyers into the bin, snatching up the coffee mug.

He was going to go downstairs and wash that mug out.

And then he was going to log Ianto Jones off for the last time.

* * *

**A/N: I depressed myself writing this. **

**I was writing under the assumption that Jack is coming back to Torchwood, and Gwen + slew-of-new-characters aren't gonna be running the show. SAVE IANTO JONES!!!**


End file.
